RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Vatican Council
turies are brought under the head of infallible pronouncements, and hence can not be reversed. This rubric then especially comprises those decisions whose debated resistance is menaced with the anathema, acknowledgment of which was required in proof of faith; or even, as in the case of the bull Unam Sanctam (q.v.) of Boniface VIII., directly set up as acondition of salvation. These doctrinal decisions among themselves, when judged from the platform of the dogma of infallibility, are presumed to possess an indispensable inner harmony. It is significant, in this connection, that the labor of collecting such papal decisions as are to be “ judged ” infallible has been essayed in a private way only, but on the part of the pope himself (the sole competent authority, according to the dogma) no similar attempt has been made, nor is it likely to be. There consequently prevails and is likely to prevail much obscurity over the infallible character of papal decisions, whether pronounced since or before the Vatican Council. Indeed, the papacy itself is concerned in the maintenance of this very status. For, on the one hand, the very vagueness of construction of decisions, where such vagueness occurs, tends to cast the halo of inerrancy over all papal decisions on subjects of faith or morals, insuring for them the respect that infallibility warrants; while, on the other hand, liberty is retained for subsequently waiving an enacted decision, if necessary, as not of ex cathedra force. There thus ensues the peculiar situation, that some of the papal decisions on faith and morals have a directly binding validity for Roman Catholic Christians, yet, not being issued in exercise of the supreme doctrinal office, they can not claim infallibility; while certain other papal decisions on faith and morals have the prestige of infallibility because they were devised on the basis of the doctrinal office purely. Since, furthermore, the pope, as a mere individual, is not exempt from lapsing into error, the case may occur wherein he, erring as a private individual in matters of faith itself, aims to exercise the supreme doctrinal office under the very influence of his error. But notwithstanding his individual fallibility, he can not succumb to error in his pontifical teaching. The doctrine of the pope’s infallibility discloses a prospect of quite complicated speculations, all of which can be avoided, however, through the belief that veritable popes have not erred and can not err.
An important consequence of the erection of the dogma of papal infallibility is a fundamental alteration in the status of ecumenical councils. The demand urged at Constance (1414-18), that the general council be viewed as the exponent of the Church, did not win, the conclusion being that this validity inhered in the council as convening in union with the pope. The Vatican Council affirmed that ecumenical councils were employed by the Fathers for preparing definitions, but were not the sole medium to thisintent. This verdict finds its foundation altogether in the iact that, under the conciliar definition of the new dogma, the quality of infallibility is ascribed to the pope alone. Accordingly, the ecumenical council has come to be superfluous in the matter of defining decrees of the faith; it has
4. The Pope and Councils.
lost its constitutive significance, and has become an advisory organ of the Church, one that in future may be drawn into requisition, but need not be called at all. So it no longer possesses any independent importance; but it has value to give brilliant and striking expression to the ecumenical character of Roman Catholicism, to attest before all nations the superior might of the papacy, or to assume a delegated responsibility for grave practical decisions and assist in bearing the brunt thereof.
8. Adoption of the Resolutions: It was only with reference to the bishops of the council’s minority that there could be any question as to whether the recognition of the new dogma would meet with obstruction. At Rome they had boldly uttered their scruples, had freely criticized the order of business, and had not suffered themselves to be intimidated by the incident that the presidents of committees interrupted their addresses. The most serious menace to the free action of the council, however, arose from abroad through Ultramontanist agitations. Archbishop Darboy and Archbishop Schwarzenberg quite sharply complained over the intemperate animosity of the Ultramontanist press against the minority bishops. It lay far from the minority’s purpose to wield a radical opposition. Indeed, their very weakness inhered in the fact that they themselves blunted the sharpness of their resistance by halting half-way. Alike from the platform of Holy Scripture, by appeal to the history of the Church, and with logical demonstration, they charged on their opponents with no feeble spirit. Every critical review of the Vatican dogma must avail itself of the minority’s writings and speeches on the subject, which are a mine of erudite knowledge. Yet their deductions are wanting in full carrying-power, because in their fundamental conception of the essence of the Church and of the Roman primacy they were at one with the majority. Hence the contest against the infallibility of the pope could be waged only with halved force. Then the battle was all the more difficult because Ultramontanism, and that enhanced esteem for the pope which rose to the height of a papal cult, had made great progress. Furthermore, when Pius IX., in the year 1854, defined the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception of Mary, this already presupposed that he had the inherent right to establish a precept of faith. This being admitted, there arose at once a prejudice in favor of the Vatican’s transactions thereafter. For assent to the course of action which the pope here initially pursued was admissible only under the condition that he had acted as a trustworthy organ of the inerrantly pronouncing Church in the sphere of faith and the issues thereof. But if this attribute were tacitly conceded to him in a specific instance, it was difficult to contest its immanency with him as a general principle. And, in fact, the greater proportion of the minority bishops shrank from any real quarrel with the doctrine of infallibility; they were willing to let it pass for a scholastic opinion, they objected merely to its dogmatization. So the opposition here at stake was greatly restricted in its practical force or scope of action. Indeed, the Curia correctly discounted the potential resistance. The protesting episcopate
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